I Can Care Too
by Starry's Light
Summary: When a certain toxic overload permeated his dear Camp Wawanakwa, something more precious than the landscape gives Chris a reason to choose different contestants. It was a weird kind of love - some sorta parental love or another. Oneshot.


**Here's a oneshot for some of our favorite characters from Total Drama... Chef and Chris! Well, more Chris. Hweh, just an insight I had on him that I needed to expand.**

I Can Care too

It was like the clock was mocking him. As he paced, pranced, drove himself through teeming agony and he lurked about his own office room on a late Saturday night demanding his coming, that stupid flat slab of glass with numbers too-neatly marked upon its glinting surface continued to _tick, tick, tick _with each step he took: _thump, tick, thump, tick, thump, tick. _The easily bemused slice of Chris's mind found this thought not dull and insignificant but hilarious, and soon hysterical, only to further itch at the back of his brain and drive him up and down a wall. If there was a button he could press to just turn him insane already, he'd crack that beeping buzzer open; use it without a doubt.

That chasing thought ensnared him and he pictured the pierced face of that delinquent kid, Duncan, who'd gone to Camp Wawanakwa all three of the seasons offered—as had everyone else, sure. But this time, the pale, metal-ringed face with the neon green mohawk sticking up in a mess of black curls—that took Chris's mind. Duncan. Gwen. Trent. Owen. Sadie. Courtney. Named began filling up his head: all tacked to pictures; words; descriptions; smiles; actions that he'd forced them into to win those thousands of dollars he'd set up in that rickety, metal briefcase for them to chase. Oh, how Chris loathed the briefcase that started his agony.

His gaze again sliced out of the windows in his simple office room, out toward what had become of the beautiful, bountiful Camp Wawanakwa: a sewage set drenched any sort of love left in it with toxin, _slurrching_ out there in semi-darkness. He flinched back at the sight, tittered softly, stared down at his tan hands. That hadn't been his brightest of ideas; the heartless Chris McLean couldn't bring himself to ask those innocent campers he found himself secretly growing to connect with to run amok in the toxic ruins.

Izzy. She next sprung into his head. That insane girl with the bright orange locks of curly hair, muffling her sharp jaw and wide grin. The pangs of fear and worry, of concern and ripping, snatching anger, broiled in his heart when those crazy guys in the helicopter took her away all because she'd suddenly had that brain flip and started realizing possibilities of endless human capacity: like she'd gone hopelessly bonkers. Chris still was a master at hiding his feelings from the cameras, but that didn't make their cores any easier to swallow. As hard as it was to take in, he couldn't deny to himself that he'd worried nonstop in his precious airplane as they took off again, set out to the skies. People say flying takes away your worries—apparently they didn't know the meaning of children.

Yeah, sometimes he considered the campers who'd continuously wound up in his camp as his children. Chris just... didn't like the thought of keeping them away any longer. The more he thought of this, the harder his job came: all he had to do was sign those forms, say the toxic island wouldn't mess up a few brains—though it most indubitably would take that few—and sign those forms all nice and pretty with his signature to call back the cast of people he'd used the last time, and the time prior, and the time prior, a prelude into now: he had to accept them back in.

And yet, Chris didn't... want to. He didn't want to hurt them, didn't want to risk their lives, to see them feel true pain, for them to choke on toxins and morph into harmful beings and lose their sanity, their happiness, their lives... Chris couldn't lose those stupid kids. He raged over and yet so strangely adored his compassion for the campers—it was funny they didn't realize what pain he went through just at that exact moment while they relaxed at home, doing normal teenager stuff like sending text messages late on their phones at night, groaning about college while pigging out on pizza in front of the television, or going out and hanging with their friends: those people he'd connected to them, he knew all too well, had, in a multifarious of occasions, brought them together. No doubt poisoned his mind that Gwen—the little goth with the turquoise stripes in her hair and the naturally pearly pale face—would spend her downtime with the peppy and loudmouthed Leshawna: the two were a match. Or maybe she'd meet up with Trent; he knew well enough those kids had some thing or another for the other. Perhaps she'd run into the preppy and always-labeled-evil Heather: the two have a brawl or something. A harmless smile cracked onto his face at that thought: Heather and Gwen scrabbling into some war.

He swore, if anyone could cause Word War III, it'd be Gwen and Heather. He'd never seen two girls—or people whatsoever—go so hard at the other's throat. Freaked him out, it did. Yet he felt that off, almost unconditional... liking, would it be? He felt that—for both the teenagers, different as they were. In and out of fits, he'd deliberate calling himself their summer-father or something crazy and irrational like that.

_THUNK._

Followed by a long, drawn-out groan, Chris's head slammed into his desk as he slapped himself into his spinning chair; that chair itself usually put him into a righteous mood, but he couldn't stand bringing his so dear children, even, back to that camp he accidentally polluted. Hey, he had to do something while everyone flew around on airplanes and junk like that. Couldn't sell his camp.

Almost instinctively, Chris watched hypnotically through locks of his wavy, black curls as a tan hand sprung from his side and ripped open that drawer to his direct right incorrectly labeled "Undies" just in case someone tried to find them: the information and picture of every single person who ever tried to sign up for Total Drama Island. He had it all right there and smiled a merry smile to recall that Owen—that chubby blonde none could see without a can of beans in one hand and a silly grin etched across his face almost as if by a four year old's crayon—had his own picture taken while at an ice cream shop and happened to have his face smeared with a rainbow of sprinkles and flavors: that family sure loved food.

But... he knew he also wouldn't get to see those dear campers—treading on a fragile chord in his heart—if he replaced them with some others because of a poisoned Wawanakwa.

_THUNK._

Head rammed into wood a second time, Chris felt sure it was either temporary separation—as long as he could eventually and painlessly fix the poison island problem and get his campers into a less deadly environment—or possible death and irrevocable change to one of those smiling faces nailed to the back of his mind. And he couldn't let that risk drop over the line. He couldn't let that grin be erased... for good. No. That thought hurt, seemed to want to tug his heart right into his throat and make him choke on it. He couldn't let them die.

Temporary separation.

Temporary separation.

Temporary separa-

_Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaak._

That creaky door nailed to his office widened up, spilling a vast expanse of light from the other room. Chris had otherwise been enjoying sitting in his darkness, though, with the windows of the dead sun and rise of the moon over his glorious island to remain his own. But it appeared an old friend wanted some attention.

Chris rolled his eyes, spoke in his breezy—but taut—tone: "What do you want, Chef?"

The stocky, dark-skinned Chef Hatchet smirked slightly from his position in the door frame, watching slowly and sluggishly as a trickle of light crawled past his shoulder blades and shot into the room, brightening one of the wooden walls. Then his black, beady eyes adverted to the fat mess of papers stuck together by the singularly messy manilla folder Chris laid on his desk. "Ya really wanna do it?" He spoke in his own taut voice, but much gruffer; deeper; more buff, less lax. "Ya really wanna keep them from this kinda harm? They've been through a lot, Chris, ya know that. They been through a lot."

"Yeah," drawled the host, "but this we're dealing with? Poison. Right from its core. One of the campers falls in—let's say Geoff and Duncan go their ways, push Harold into some goo—and then the guy's, I dunno, got some serious mess-up going on in his head that, like, changes him forever? Keeps him... different—bad?"

Chef dutifully blinked back at his friend; the position suggested he was considering and divulging the words tossed at him almost carelessly, it would seem. The stocky black saw through that. He knew his old pal had something running along behind. "Ya really care about those guys? Kinda funny, saying that they've all seen pretty life-threatening situations."

"You have to hide that stuff from the cams, man," Chris mumbled into the manilla folder. It sat like a tortoise on his desk, staring back blankly without movement: creeped out the chef as he saw how hungrily Chris looked at it. "And I always have to make sure they don't get severely injured. Sure, Alejandro got hit by those molten flares but... did we not patch him up, fix it all, make it better? We did that. Used some of our money, too, just to make it safe. Now that, that's stuff you can hide from the cams."

His old friend snorted; it was like his gruff tone made the slimy sound of simmering mucus ever the snottier. "Hah. That ya can, man; that ya can. Still, don't ya think ya've overdone it, something? Hiding your feelings?"

"I'm not touchy-feely. C'mon, even they're smart enough to know that."

"Whatever." Although Chef's curt intrusion suggested the end of conversation, he continued to loftily slouch in the corner of sunlight he'd brought into the room, the act of his old smirk dropped. He honestly kind of felt conflicted in his own—he'd crafted enough illegal bargains with the campers to show for it. Sure, he and Chris both had their own ways of displaying and hiding their secret compassion for those kids, but they both felt it; and with the bubbling tension in the room, he could hardly stand choking on that notion. It hurt, it did. "So... who d'ya plan to send invites to? What're you gonna tell your so precious little babies? Gonna get rid of the sewage?" Chef didn't laugh, though his tone might've provoked one.

Already the clock had been forgotten in the back of the room as it listlessly ticked, its _tick tock tick tock _silenced by the incursions of volume, garnered by the fat, manilla folder on the desk as it set into motion: a turtle waking from its slumber.

_Thump. Thak—thak—thak—thak—thak—thakthak. _Swishing papers flew into random order on the desk, forgotten by its masters. Some of those crinkled edges looked to have lived in that home for much longer than it seemed.

A shimmering face of a boy with fluffy, brown curls kept under a puff-ball hat and awkward smile skidded out of their hands.

"Y'know, Ezekiel got pretty messed up 'cuz of ya."

"Yeah, but I kind of feel like he's happier that way."

"You're messed up."

"That doesn't sound like you're disagreeing, Chef Hatchet."

His old pal chucked, but didn't add to the conversation, and it faded away as the accumulation of _thakking, thakking, thakking _poured into the room of the shifting, manilla folder and its loss or movement of contents. Chris's tan hands switched from face to face, pointing out acceptable candidates that could fill in their roles and take over so that their dear campers couldn't be harmed over terms like "that redhead with the tomboy cut" or "the brown-haired dude, little spike hair" or "chubby girl; brown hair." These all signified little codes in their minds: "looks kind of like a preppy Gwen" or "if Duncan hadn't gone to juvy and gotten all those green spikes" or "girl Owen, darker hair and less smiley." They seemed to release another sigh with each choice of character; just the thought of piecing back their children until they could bring them back for real anchored into real hope for the future, for reunion—the odd sort, sure, but still a reunion.

Ignored without mind, the clock ticked later, delving deeper into the dark folds of night as the two adults searched for candidates that they wouldn't grow attached to—in theory, hope, and plan—and wouldn't care for there whereabouts, just planned to use until they could reunite again with the special someones.

_Tick, tick, tick tick._

**So... yeah. He can care too. Halfway through this I had to look up on the wiki what Chef's last name was and saw that the web confirmed more than suggested that Chris and Chef don't even care a little bit for the other contestents.**

**Whatever. I'll believe what I want to believe. And I think Chris did much better with his oldies. Even Chef, I guess. Thanks for reading my oneshot. ^^**


End file.
